by Mark Bowden
And the commentary spins out of control. The Philadelphia Daily News banners the benching and follows it as the lead sports story all week: “Pine Time,” “Earth to Randall,” “If I’m Sittin’, I’m Splittin’.” The Philadelphia Inquirer, on the day Bill Clinton is elected president of the United States, leads the paper with a story about Randall’s benching, and the story tops page one on the Sunday after the election. Local TV carries comments from Randall and Richie and teammates every night, and the network sports shows lead off their broadcasts with the “furor.” Buddy’s face pops up on TV to (surprise, surprise) criticize Richie—”I’ve benched players before … but they were back in there the next week.” The old issue of athletic talent versus strategic talent surfaces again, of course—never mind Randall’s five full incredibly accomplished NFL seasons. There is speculation that Randall’s taking too long to throw the ball, not reading defenses, throwing poorly, favoring his good knee, taking drugs, drinking heavily, missing Keith Jackson, losing his mind … which the quarterback doesn’t help later in the week when he decides to put things in perspective with a little lecture to his insistent audience about the imminence of Apocalypse.
“I think the world is confused right now,” he says. “We have a new president. The economy is all messed up. You know, earthquakes, hurricanes. I think everybody should get into the Bible right now and do what God wants us to do because this world could be ending very soon and my main goal is to go to heaven and not hell.”
Which pushes things deeply into the realm of the weird. Wait a minute, weren’t we talking football?
See, up on the mountaintop, things don’t happen to Randall on a normal, earthly scale. Randall’s scale is cosmic. Later he will insist that he was just kidding, having some fun with the Pack—Whatever Randall said, he didn’t mean it—but it isn’t the first time that the quarterback has drawn a parallel between life and death and a career setback. Randall routinely lumps the profound with the trivial, like when his teammates’ criticism made him feel as if he were “in a coffin,” or when he invoked the death of his parents in the postgame press conference after Buddy benched him for three plays in that notorious Skins playoff game. This week he talks about a fan, a woman, who waited for him in the rain outside the stadium, and who told him she was a spiritualist who had foreseen his travails, and that she was praying for him, and that God had chosen him to go through this adversity so that his personal strength could be a beacon to others. Randall is buying this. It places the trials and tribulations of Randall Cunningham, quarterback, on a biblical scale, which feels right to him. Indeed, at home, up in the Fortress of Solitude, the lonely, benched, multimillionaire quarterback has found an echo of his own torment in nothing less than the Book of Job:
Though I speak, my grief is not assuaged: and though I forbear, what am I eased? …
He teareth me in his wrath, who hateth me; he gnasheth upon me with his teeth; mine enemy sharpeneth his eyes upon me.
They have gaped upon me with their mouth; they have smitten me upon the cheek reproachfully; they have gathered themselves together against me.
God hath delivered me to the ungodly, and turned me over into the hands of the wicked.
Mind you, Job here was talking about the loss of family, fortune, reputation, and being covered with boils from head to toe. Still, there is at least a thematic parallel with being benched for a game and a half. It shows how much Randall’s whole juggernaut Cult of Self was riding on his status as starting quarterback. And in his hour of need, one to whom he has turned for solace, he tells the Pack, is his very good friend “Downtown” Julie Brown.
“Downtown” Julie Brown?
This is the kind of thing that drives his teammates crazy. Down in the locker room the boys who go to war with Randall every Sunday are shaking their heads. It’s typical of the quarterback’s problem. What’s he doing talking to a TV star when he ought to be talking to his teammates? Why isn’t he sitting down with his linemen and receivers and asking them what’s wrong? What can I do to make this work better? How can I improve? These are the guys who are out there on the field with him every Sunday, whose fates rise and fall with his own. Is this a crisis of Randall’s celebrity or a crisis of Team? Above all, he should be talking to Jimbo, to him and to Arch. They sit in all the meetings together, study the same game plans, go over the same tapes. What are their insights? Hell, a guy like Jimmy Mac brings a wealth of accumulated wisdom, eleven seasons’ worth, not to mention the trip to the Super Bowl. And Jimbo’s insights are not just about things like strategy and technique, the man has played against just about every coach and player in the league; he knows the strengths and weaknesses of linebackers and cornerbacks. Jimbo is a player clearly on the downside of the parabola at age thirty-three; his legs are long gone but he’s still making up for it with his head. What an opportunity! Before this ever happened Randall should have been grateful to tap into what his celebrated backup had to offer. He should be picking the son of a bitch’s brain apart! Instead he’s crying on the shoulder of “Downtown” Julie Brown?
“She told me, ‘Just don’t worry about all this stuff,’” says Randall. “‘You know how things are, rumors and all that crazy stuff. Just go out there and be yourself.’”
“She didn’t say nothin’ about looking off the free safety?” quips Arch, who has made it a habit to listen in on these sessions.
Randall had his reasons for staying away from Jimbo and Arch. He could sense enemy vibes over his shoulder, and they were real. The veteran, traditional, white quarterbacks had played together before, with the Chargers in ’89, and they had thinly disguised contempt for Randall’s methods. For one thing, Randall’s exceptional talent and his philosophy of the position inadvertently played right into the old athletic vs. strategic racial stereotypes. Jimbo and Arch believed his understanding of the game was minimal, almost childlike. Before the midweek game-planning sessions with Zeke, for instance, Randall would always fetch a clean pad from Zeke’s desk drawer and a green and a red pen. He was fussy about the pens, always a green one and a red one. And while Zeke would walk them through the game plan, Randall would often be off in space, drawing up plays of his own he wanted added to it. Mind you, the coaches had been working twelveto fourteen-hour days since Monday morning poring over film breakdowns, computer analyses, self-scouting, discussing tendencies, twists, clever variations, and Randall walked in cold Wednesday, grabbed a pad and a few pens, and doodled up a better idea? Jimbo and Arch would roll their eyes behind Randall’s back. At the end of the meeting, whatever notes, diagrams, or doodles Randall made would invariably be left lying on the desk—so much for boning up on things at home.
Arch and Jimbo got a kick out of what they saw as Randall’s remedial-level comprehension of the game’s finer points. In the second half of the Dallas game, for instance, when Randall was acting like a trooper, hanging next to Richie and trying to get involved, he ran out on the field between plays at one point and shouted to Jim, “They’re playing zone, Jim! They’re in zone!”
Arch watched that and just shook his head. To whom did Randall think he was talking? Nobody in the whole NFL was a better gameday quarterback than Jim McMahon. And telling the difference between man coverage and zone, hell, that was high-school stuff!
“Did you hear him when he ran out?” Jimbo asked Arch after the game. And they both had a good chuckle over it.
To these journeymen veterans steeped in the traditions of the game, Randall lacked the leader-of-men profile they felt the position demanded. During a game, one minute Randall would be walking up the sidelines screaming in a childish snit, raving out into the air to no one in particular about how he can’t get any time to make something happen, the next minute he’d be sulking by himself on the bench, and then you’d look over and he’d be down on one knee praying with Keith Byars. Shit, the quarterback was supposed to inspire! Other players looked to the quarterback to be cool and steady in a crisis. Randall’s demeanor was like some peac
ock actor’s pique over how bad he was being made to look because his supporting cast couldn’t get their lines straight. And here they both were, getting paid a fraction of Randall’s salary, sitting behind him on the bench, mentally noting the opportunities missed out on the field, watching opposing teams take advantage of Randall’s unschooled approach to the game.
Jimbo would pull Richie aside from time to time and say, “Hey, why don’t you give me a chance to play?”
And Richie would shrug. They both figured the coach’s hands were tied. What other explanation could there be?
To his credit, Jimmy Mac low-keys the whole week leading up to his start against the Raiders. He steers clear of the Pack, adhering to his policy of answering questions only immediately after a game in which he plays. He goes about his business the way he always does, playing Bones with his teammates, moving from the training table to the practice field to the meeting rooms with his pale face and pale blue eyes and tousled fair hair, head held high, teasing his teammates and taunting the teeming mass of scribes and airheads pressing around Randall’s locker, growling when the Pack intrudes on his small space, which is just two stalls away.
But Jim doesn’t have to say anything for Randall to know how he feels. He knows that both of his backups are less than sold on his worthiness as a starter. They are true believers, both of them. They are old-fashioned, drop-back, take-what-they-give-you quarterbacks, not make-something-happen guys. He respects them; why can’t they respect him? Randall has watched the Richie-Jimbo chemistry gel during the long ’91 season, while he sat out and rehabbed the knee (which, as it happens, he blew out standing in the pocket checking off receivers). He suspects Richie would be a lot happier with Jimbo as his starter, and he is right about that.
Randall believes this benching move is what Richie had in mind all along.
THE GAME SUNDAY, a sunny, cold afternoon at the Vet, does nothing to dispel Randall’s fears. Buddy’s Boys pounce all over the Raiders’ second-year quarterback Todd Marinovich, who skipped his senior year at USC to join the pros and about now probably wishes he could reconsider. His passes are intercepted three times in the Raiders’ first five offensive possessions—Eric, Wes, and John Booty all profit—and L.A. coach Art Shell pulls the kid midway through the second quarter before things get worse.
At first, the Jimbo-led offense stumbles around haplessly, managing only to set up a field goal despite being given great field position three times.
“This would tend to support the arguments of Randall Cunning ham, that the problems this team has been having are not his, but the offensive system,” says NBC game analyst Bob Trumpy. “You can’t keep getting field position like this and come away from it emptyhanded. The Eagles’ defense ought to be able to sue the offense for nonsupport.”
But then Jimbo hits his stride. Early in the game, he notices a Raiders’ coverage tendency he can exploit. When L.A. lines up with two safeties in a deep zone, it leaves Fred Barnett covered one-on-one by cornerback Lionel Washington for about the first twenty yards downfield. Deep coverage is handled by safety Eddie Anderson. In meetings during the previous week, they had decided they liked the Barnett-Anderson matchup. What’s more, the quarterback notices that Anderson will sometimes cheat toward the middle of the field, which is just opening the door for a receiver with Fred’s speed. Opposing teams have always doubted Jimbo’s ability to throw the ball deep with accuracy. And sure enough, he has Fred wide open sprinting for the end zone but throws an errant pass. The quarterback comes off the field swinging his fists with frustration, but makes a mental note.
And late in the second quarter, in a second-down play, Jimbo decides to try again for the open door. Richie signals in a play calling for both wide receivers to run down-and-in patterns, which Jimbo dutifully calls in the huddle, but then he turns to Fred like a sandlot quarterback and tells the receiver to fake the turn inside, and then break off the pattern and sprint deep.
“Give me an extra second or two on this one, guys,” he tells his offensive line in the huddle, “and this is a touchdown.”
It’s Babe Ruth pointing to the centerfield stands, as far as the offensive line is concerned. They do their part, and Jimbo lofts a beaut, a thirty-five-yard arc that meets Fred perfectly in stride for six points.
“He called it!” the linemen are shouting as they come running off the field.
“He called it! He called his shot,” they tell their excited teammates.
It’s the stuff of which legends are made. Randall, wearing a green hooded jacket, is among the first to greet his replacement as he chugs off the field, clapping him enthusiastically on the back.
The Eagles take a 17-3 lead into the halftime locker room, and never look back. Their defense allows only one late-fourth-quarter touchdown, which Seth will later blame on Richie for not playing conservatively with a 31—3 lead late in the game and running out the clock. “It was totally uncalled for,” he says. Throughout the second half, the TV cameras move back and forth from Jim, on the field, to Richie, calling plays on the sidelines, to Randall, pacing by himself, sitting on the bench, yawning, looking forlorn.
But when the game is over, Richie reiterates, with one of his belligerent, preemptive announcements punctuated with a jabbing “okay?” that no matter how well Jim performed, Randall will start next week’s game against Green Bay. Diplomacy rules throughout the locker room. Jimbo doesn’t gloat, and he doesn’t complain about the coach’s verdict.
“I’m here on this team, part of this team. I’m not here to make those decisions.”
“Don’t you think your performance today will increase the pressure on Randall?”
What’s he supposed to say?
“Hell, the guy’s making a lot of money,” said the veteran quarterback. “Pressure is going to be on him every day. Comes with the territory.”
The only small crack in the wall of happy talk is inadvertent. Center Dave Alexander, obligingly stopping for a chat with a local TV reporter outside the locker room, lets his candor get the best of him.
“What do you think made the difference out there today, Dave?” the reporter asks. “Was at it Jim McMahon?”
“Jim and Randall are almost total opposites as far as quarterbacking goes,” says Dave, grinning—the center is blithely wading into trouble here. For one thing, he’s one of Jimbo’s favorite golf buddies, which makes him automatically suspect in Randall’s eyes. He’s also a big, good ol’ boy from Oklahoma redneck country, another problem. Dave is a confident public speaker, but, as with most linemen, he is not usually high on the Pack’s list of interview opportunities. He’s used to speaking to the more veteran print reporters, offering valuable insights that will often find their way into print unattached to his name. He likes talking about the game. Now his wide friendly face fills the TV screen as he unwittingly inserts his foot in his mouth.
“Randall is a guy who’s gonna run around the pocket, try to make the big play, throw the ball downfield [athletic]. Jim doesn’t have that kind of ability. He can’t run around, can’t throw the ball as far. He uses his brain, reads the defense, and gets rid of the ball [strategic]…. I played with Randall for four years before Jim got here. I’ve grown up in the league with Randall. Playing last year with Jim, I realized some things could be done audibling the play. Randall is not a big audibler—he likes to go with the play that’s called and try to make a big play even if it’s not there. If the play’s not there, he’ll say, ‘I’ll make somebody miss.’ Sometimes that works, and sometimes it doesn’t.”
This is, of course, simply true. But coming on the heels of Jimbo’s big victory—the Eagles have just scored more points in four quarters than they scored in the previous three games—it sure sounds like you could maybe interpret what ol’ Dave is saying here to mean that the shrewd old white guy gets the job done better than the fancy-pants young black guy, and that fancy-pants, the athletic performer, is kind of a hotdog who thinks he can make things happen on his own. Sometimes t
hat works, and sometimes it doesn’t. Well, hell, everybody sure knows how well Randall’s methods have been working lately. Dave doesn’t bother putting the two and two together, but the announcer whose face fills the screen when the center moves away doesn’t hesitate.
Why, that’s amazing, we’ve just heard the team’s starting center practically, by gosh—and you heard it here live on our station just now with your own ears! —endorse Jim McMahon over Randall Cunningham! Randall may be starting next week, but who says this quarterback controversy is over?
Truth is, the controversy will rage as long as Randall plays the game. He’s either way ahead or way behind his times.
Dave won’t find out until later that he’s pretty much screwed up his career-long rapport with the Scrambling One, who will hear what quickly becomes known as the Amazing On-Air Betrayal soon enough.
As for Randall, he emerges the following week, having survived his exile, his Job-like trial, in a relaxed, even chatty, mood. Jimbo is back on the sidelines. Hurricanes, tornadoes, and earthquakes have subsided; the presidential transition is going smoothly; the world has jerked back into joint. A rainbow is on the horizon. The swollen Pack is back down to its normal, local size. Randall now insists that all that doomsaying and spiritual angst last week was a put-on, just something to keep his friends in the media entertained.
“Nice sweater,” he compliments one of the familiar faces come to quiz him before his locker at midweek, reaching up to tweak the fabric of the hound’s considerable belly between two long fingers. “These lint balls come with it?”
“Hasn’t all this furor upset your balance a little bit?” a hopeful voice asks.